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Saumitra Jha
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Saumitra Jha

Associate Professor of Political Economy, Stanford Graduate School of Business

Saumitra Jha is an associate professor of political economy at Stanford Graduate School of Business, and, by courtesy, of economics and of political science at Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences.

Professor Jha convenes the Stanford Conflict and Polarization Lab. He is also a senior fellow at the Center for Democracy, Development and Rule of Law within the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Affairs, a faculty fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.

Professor Jha’s research has been published in leading journals in economics and political science, including the American Economic Review, the American Political Science Review, Econometrica, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and the Journal of Development Economics.

His research examines how societies design institutions, financial systems, and organizations to manage political conflict, reduce violence, and foster cooperation across deep social divides.

Drawing on historical cases and contemporary experimental evidence, Professor Jha’s work explores how financial innovation can align incentives across rival groups, turning former combatants, ethnic factions, and political opponents into stakeholders in peace. His research on this subject spans seventeenth-century England, the early United States, Meiji Japan, and modern settings including Israel-Palestine, Brexit-era Britain, Mexico, and the United States.

Doctoral Dissertation: Essays in the development of culture and governance.

Education
PhD Economics, Stanford University · Part III Mathematical Tripos, University of Cambridge · MPhil Economics, University of Cambridge · BA Mathematics & Economics, Williams College
Topics
Economics · Political Science · How Finance Can Be Used To Build Social Cohesion · How Trade Can Be Used To Build Social Cohesion · The Political Economy of South Asia · 11) Jha · Saumitra “Trading for Peace” · Economic Policy · Vol. 33 · No. 95 · pp. 485-526 · July 2018.

In the Encyclopedia1

Selected publications8

  1. 2025Jha, Saumitra “Breaking through the Ethnic Growth Trap”, Economic Policy, forthcoming, 2025.
  2. 2025Jha, Saumitra “Pax Economica: A Review”, Journal of Economic Literature, June 2025.
  3. 2025Jha, Saumitra, Moses Shayo and Chagai Weiss “Financial Market Exposure Increases Generalized Trust”, Journal of Public Economics, Vol. 242, February 2025.
  4. 2025Jha, Saumitra and Moses Shayo, “Trading Stocks Builds Financial Confidence and Compresses the Gender Gap”, the Economic Journal, Vol. 135, No. 665, January 2025, pp.235-263. Winner of the 2025 MAIA award for best global academic paper on financial literacy and inclusion.
  5. 2024Jha, Saumitra “Civil and Ethnic Conflict in Historical Political Economy”, in Jeffrey Jenkins and Jared Rubin eds., the Oxford Handbook of Historical Political Economy, February 2024, pp.597-622.
  6. 2023Jha, Saumitra, “Building Resilient Inter-Ethnic Peace”, in Dominic Rohner and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, eds., Nation-Building: Big Lessons from Successes and Failures, Center for Economic Policy Research, February 2023.
  7. 2023Cagé, Julia, Pauline Grosjean and Saumitra Jha “The Influence of Heroic Networks”, in Dominic Rohner and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, eds., Nation-Building: Big Lessons from Successes and Failures, Center for Economic Policy Research, February 2023.
  8. 2020Cagé, Julia, Anna Dagorret, Pauline Grosjean and Saumitra Jha “Heroes and Villains: The Effects of Heroism on Autocratic Values and Nazi Collaboration in France”, American Economic Review, Vol. 113, No. 6, July 2023. Winner of the 2020 Oliver Williamson Best Paper Award from the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics.

Positions & affiliations5

  • Stanford University
  • Harvard University
  • Princeton University
  • Science Po
  • Yale University

Honours & awards23

  • 2025 Money Awareness and Inclusion Award (MAIA) for best global academic paper on financial literacy and inclusion
  • 2025 Center for Economic Policy Research ReCIPE Grant (co-PI)
  • 2024 Stanford GSB Business, Government and Society Grant
  • 2023 Lee J. Alston Best Paper Prize, Journal of Historical Political Economy
  • 2022-23 Dan C. Chung Faculty Scholar at the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Affairs.
  • 2022- Inaugural Stanford Teagle Fellow in Liberal Education.
  • 2020 Teacher of the Year Award, voted by the students of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Sloan Fellows (MSx) Program
  • 2020 Oliver Williamson Best Paper Award, Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics
  • 2019- Stanford King Center on Global Development Initiative Grant.
  • 2018,19 Inaugural Peiros Family Faculty Fellow, Stanford GSB & King Center for Global Development
  • 2018 Stanford Center for Global Poverty and Development Initiative Startup Grant
  • 2017-18 Winnick Family Faculty Scholar, Stanford GSB
  • 2015 Stanford Innovation & Entrepreneurship in Developing Economies Award.
  • 2014 Michael Wallerstein Award for best published article in Political Economy in the previous calendar year, American Political Science Association
  • 2011,13 John A. Gunn and Cynthia Fry Gunn Faculty Scholar, Stanford GSB
  • 2005-06 Koret Foundation Dissertation Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
  • 2005 Humane Studies Fellow, Institute for Humane Studies
  • 2005 Research Fellow, John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics, Stanford Law School
  • 2001-04 Graduate Fellow, Department of Economics, Stanford University
  • 1999-01 Dr. Herchel Smith Scholarship to Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge
  • 1999 Carl Van Duyne Prize for excellence and intellectual curiosity in Economics, Williams College
  • 1998 Phi Beta Kappa (junior year inductee- top 5% of class)
  • 1995-99 Haystack International Student Full Scholarship (1 of 5) to Williams College